Archive for October, 2009

One of the most common questions we get is “How do I keep the keyboard from disappearing when I hit return?” With all the people asking, we obviously didn’t get the interface quite right. So expect us to revisit things in the future. =)

That said, currently, to keep the keyboard around, tap on the Pin button in the upper right hand corner. While it’s highlighted, the Return key will only behave as a carriage return and will not return you to the trackpad.

Following up on yesterday’s tip…sometimes you have something in your keyboard history that you would prefer not to be there — a “sensitive” URL, a password, a typo, etc.

There’s the Clear History option, but that wipes out your entire keyboard history. A bit drastic if you only want to delete one or two items. Here’s a better solution — Simply swipe your index finger left-to-right across the row you wish to delete!

Power users will know that in most of Apple’s iPhone apps (like Mail), you can delete a single item from a list by using this swiping left-to-right gesture. HippoRemote supports this shortcut extensively. You can swipe to delete Connections, Logins, Macros, and yes, individual items in your Keyboard History.

Hopefully you all are using HippoRemote’s built-in Login Manager to store your usernames and passwords. It will save you a bunch of typing — a big productivity boost, particularly if you don’t really like the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.

In HippoRemote 1.2, we added support for password-only logins. Out of habit, we generally configure our computers to require a password when waking from sleep. And while HippoRemote’s Keyboard History makes it easy to enter the password, seeing our password in plain text always makes us cringe. So in 1.2, you can now create a Login with a blank username and HippoRemote will handle it properly.

Note: Prior to 1.2, if you tried to create a password-only login, a number of bad things could happen, including HippoRemote being unable to delete that login. Basically, we had a bug that would store the password incorrectly. This bug has been fixed, but in order to clear out pre-existing bad logins, you must delete and reinstall HippoRemote. We’re really sorry for letting that one slip through the cracks. Hopefully it hasn’t caused you much grief.

Circular Scrolling is a really handy feature. The obvious use is to scroll through documents and web pages. But did you know you can scroll to zoom in/out of Google (and Yahoo) maps? Or flip through CoverFlow in iTunes?

But benefits aside, it was always a bit annoying to have to take our eyes off the TV and hunt for the scroll button on the iPhone screen. With version 1.2, we’ve made Circular Scrolling even easier to use. Just start dragging your thumb across the bottom of the screen to activate scrolling. We’ve enlarged the detection zone to include the entire tab bar at the bottom of the trackpad — instant no-look scrolling.

In fact, for those of you who like really minimal interfaces, you can go into the settings and hide the scroll button, but still have access to Circular Scrolling via the trackpad’s tab bar.

If you’re on the computer a lot, the ALT+TAB or COMMAND+TAB shortcuts for switching apps are probably second nature. Unfortunately, these keyboard shortcuts don’t translate well to the iPhone, partly because it’s awkward to do multi-finger press and hold on such a small keyboard, and partly because the iPhone keyboard itself doesn’t readily support held keys.

In HippoRemote, we created a really simple trackpad gesture for app switching that works just like the keyboard shortcut. Put three fingers on the trackpad and swipe down. This will bring up the familiar app switching UI on your computer. Keep swiping down with three fingers to advance to the next app. Or swipe up to go to the previous app. When you’ve reached the desired application, simply do nothing for a second and Presto! – app switched.

Alternatively, you can use the three finger gesture to start app switching, then drag the mouse pointer over the desired application and tap the screen once to select. This is great for those multi-taskers who keep a whole lot of apps open all the time. Yes, you know who you are. =)